Humans are unique on Earth. We're the only living species that can evolve a higher intelligence, wear clothes, cook our food, invent phones, and then get locked out of them when we forget our passwords, as far as we know.
But what if the world went extinct? We have large, complex societies because of the smarts and skills of other animals.
"We're pretty good at making short term predictions with modern gene-sequencing technology and our understanding of evolution," Martha said. If humans were to suddenly go extinct tomorrow, climate change would continue to drive many species towards drought resilience in order to survive. polar bears and penguins are unlikely to thrive in the millennia after humans are gone because of the cold-specialized species.
What could cause humans to go extinct?
"A big thing will be the idea of convergence," Dougal Dixon, a science writer and author of the speculative book "After Man: A Zoology of the Future", told Live Science. Two unrelated organisms end up developing the same characteristics in order to succeed in a particular environment or niche.
The fish shape is the classic example. The sleek, torpedo-like bodies and stabilizing fins of fish make them ideal for life in water. Unlike fish, dolphins are warm-blooded, air-breathing mammals with a completely different evolutionary background.
The University of Manchester found that humans are uniquely good at building and spatial reasoning because of our dexterous hands. In order to fill the same ecological role as humans, another species would need to develop a similar ability to manipulate objects. They would need thumb equivalents.
Chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living relatives, have opposable thumbs that they use to make tools in the wild. If humans go extinct, these hominids might replace us. Our species was able to beat the intelligent Neanderthals 40,000 years ago, according to a study published in the journal Nature. It would probably take hundreds of thousands of years of evolution for other apes to be able to create and use sophisticated, human-like tools. The common ancestor of modern humans and Chimpanzees lived about 7 million years ago.
Chimpanzees are likely to be wiped out by any disaster that is potent enough to wipe out humans.
When dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago, mammals rose to fill many of their vacant niches. It's possible that birds could fill our roles as the smartest and handiest land animals if humans were to disappear. According to research published in 2020 in the journal Science, some birds, such as crows and ravens, have intellectual capabilities that rival those of humans. A study published in 2002 shows that some birds can use their feet and beaks to fashion wire into hooks. African grey parrots can learn up to 100 words and do simple math.
Birds can flock together in large groups, and some can even build communal nest sites. According to research published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, some weaver nest remain occupied by birds for decades. These dwellings wouldn't look like human metropolises.
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The African savanna has giant colonies of tychran. The image is from the genic Images.
ThesetoweringtermitecoloniesdottheAfricansavanna
There is a group of animals that are very good at manipulating objects with their limbs.
"Intelligence is modifying your behavior as a result of influence from your environment," said a researcher at the University of Lethbridge. The smartest non-human animals are the octopuses. They can learn to distinguish between real and virtual objects, and they can even engineer their environment by removing unwanted algae from their dens and barricading the entrance with shells, according to a study in the journal Communicative and Integrative Biology. The discovery of "Octlantis" off Australia shows that they live in communities.
If modern humans never existed, how would Earth be different?
It would be hard for the octopuses to adapt to land. The iron in the blood cells of the vertebrates is very efficient. The copper-based blood cells in the relatives of the octopuses are different. These molecules are less able to bind to oxygen, and as a result, they are confined to oxygen-saturated waters. "They have taken an inefficient metabolism as far as they can go," he said.
Because of this, Mather thinks that the smartest and most impactful land animal will be the squid. Her money is on insects. "I think the insects are more difficult than us," he said. "Unfortunately, they're not as tough as cephalopods."
Insects are very flexible to different environments. The Natural History Museum in London says they have been around for 480 million years. They've evolved to fill almost every niche imaginable, from flying to burrowing to swimming and even building elaborate city-like towers. The organization of ant colonies resembles human civilization more than any other non-human species. According to research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, ants are known to farm fungi, while a study published in the journal Scientific Reports states that termites can communicate with each other using vibrations. It's possible that insect colonies could take over the world if humans go extinct.
It's almost impossible to predict how evolution will unfold on a geologic time scale. "As you go further and further out, your precision is less clear because of all the wonderful things that cause variation," he said. Random mutations, sudden extinction events, and population bottlenecks are factors that can lead to a species losing much of its genetic diversity.
It's difficult to say whether another species will want to build cities or develop human-level intelligence. It could happen, but not without millions of years of the right pressure. He is less optimistic. "I don't think nature will make that mistake again," he said.
Live Science published the original article.
